Apparatus for scouring and cleaning pipes or conduits.



No. 646,545. Patented Apr. ,3, I900. F. NOVOTNY.

APPARATUS FOR SCOUBING AND CLEANING PIPES 0R CONDUITS.

(Application filed Nov. 11, 1899.)

(No Model.)

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UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

FRANZ NOVOTNY, OF BERNBURG, GERMANY.

APPARATUS FOR SCOURING AND CLEANING PIPES OR CONDUITS.

SPECIFICATION forming partof Letters Patent N 0. 646,545, dated April 3, 1900.

' Application filed November 11, 1899. Serial No. 736,611. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, FRANZ NOVOTNY, a subject of the Duke of Anhalt-Bernburg, residing at Bernburg-on-the-Saale, Germany, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in or Relating to Apparatus for Scouring and Cleaning Pipes and Conduits,'(for which I have applied for Letters Patent in Germany, filed April 21, 1899, and in France, filed June 7, 1899,) of which the following is a specification.

In tubular pipes and conduits for water or other fluids vegetable or mineral sediments become in time deposited on the sides and especially on the lower parts of the conduits, which form in time a gradually-thickening and hardened layer, which it was, up to now, almost impossible to remove, especially in conduits extending for considerable lengths, whereby not infrequently the very existence of an extensive plant of such pipe-conduits becomes threatened.

The object of the present invention there fore is an apparatus for scouring tubular conduits of all kinds of any diameter and length and to remove from them the said deposits.

The apparatus in question is represented in'the accompanying drawings.

Figure 1 shows it at work in a straight pipe, Fig. 2 in a bent pipe, while Fig. 3 rep resents a section through the pipe and the piston a; Fig. 4, a similar section through the scraper b, and Fig. 5 a section through the brush 0.

The part a consists of a parabolical or other form of body having a circular cross-section, the largest diameter of which is a few millimeters smaller than the diameter of the pipe to be cleaned and is intended to act as a guide and piston, which owing to its slightly-smaller diameter can be driven by means of compressed steam, air, water, or by any other means of pressure to which the said body offers a resisting-surface through and along the lpe.

The body I) is made of resisting material, and its surface is provided with sharpened teeth, scrapers, ribs, or slots forming, preferably, an acute angle with the longitudinal axis of said body, owing to which arrangement the body in passing through the tube will have imparted to it a revolving motion, like a screw. By means of the movement through the pipe of this body thus armed the hardeneddeposit is cut up and loosened.

The cylindrical device 0 is provided on its cylindrical surface with bristles, such as steelwire brushes, and being of a diameter equal tothe bore of the tube intended to be scoured will remove and carry off the sediment-layer already cut up and loosened by the part b.

Fig. 2 represents the apparatusin action in a bent part of the pipe-conduit. In it the parts marked a b c are the same as those so marked in Fig. 1, respectively. In order to use the apparatus, one of the access-chambers in the pipe-conduit system is opened and thethree devices connected together are inserted in the order described above, the last of them beingsecured to a guide or safety line which passes out of the chamber through a packed orifice in the cover, the outer end being fastened to a winch on which the required length of line is wound. The chamber is then tightly closed and the next one toward which the apparatus is intended to travel through the pipe about to be scoured is opened, so as to allow an exit of the compressed fluid about to be used and for the hardened'deposit to be removed. Pressure of the required degree is now applied in the form of compressed steam, air, water, or the like in the direction indicated by arrows in the accompanying drawings, in consequence of which the apparatus will be effectually driven along the tubing, drawing after it the line asit unwinds from the winch. The power of the pressure medium is sufficient to drive the fragments of the sediment loosened by the scraper b and caught by the brush 0 before the latter to the next chamber, together with the apparatus itself, the latter thus working without stoppage. After arriving at the next chamber the apparatusmay be taken out there or drawn back through the conduit by means of the guide-line and winch to the chamber where it was inserted.

Practical experiments have proved the fact that a pipe-conduit of about one thousand meters long and two hundred and fifty millimeters wide can be scoured in a short time under a pressure of three atmospheres without stoppage,and this in spite of several bends having to be negotiated in the tubular conduit.

\Vhat I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. In an apparatus for scouring pipes and tubular conduits, the combination with a piston-body of circular cross-section,of a scraperbody flexibly connected therewith and adapted for rotary movement and provided with scraping projections on its outer surface arranged at an acute angle to the longitudinal axis of the scraper-body.

2. In an apparatus for scouring pipes and tubular conduits the combination of a pistonbody of circular cross-section, a scraper provided with a series of scraping projections on FRANZ NOVOTNY.

Witnesses:

HERNANDO DE Soro, RUDOLF SCHMIDT. 

